Spirits - and avians - soar on Marin Headlands birdwatching tour

No group of 49ers panning for gold could have been more excited than the group of 15 birdwatchers who scrambled to look at birder Lynn Hoerle's find during a National Park Service walk at Rodeo Lagoon in the Marin Headlands Sunday morning.

The tour, led by lifelong birder and 28-year Park Service guide Jane Haley, aided and abetted both first-time and experienced aficionados in spotting and identifying various avian life forms. Anna's hummingbirds, Killdeers, Black Phoebes, young and old coots (though not the "you kids get off my lawn" variety) and the aforementioned green heron were standouts on the walk.

As the heron preened on its perch on the far shore of the lagoon's deep-blue water cradled beneath the mountains of the Headlands, birders clicked camera shutters, hoisted binoculars and planted tripods mounted with spotting scopes in hopes of getting the bird in their sights.

Needless to say, there was nary a trigger to pull, as the group was strictly nonviolent. So much so, in fact, that a later revelation by Haley caused a wave of distress.

As the birders peered through their binoculars searching for pelicans, Haley revealed, "River otters eat pelicans. They come up behind them, pull them down and drown them. One time I found eight or nine pelican carcasses by the lagoon."

"I'm so disillusioned," responded Marie Mika of San Francisco, who was on her first birding expedition with husband Jason Gonzales. The group burst into laughter.

"It's all part of what goes on in nature," Haley said.

"I don't judge," said Mika, setting off more chuckles.

As the group assembled in the parking lot of the Marin Headlands Visitor Center on the clear, crisp morning, all were in good spirits.

Some, like Haley, carried hardcopy guides with brightly colored illustrations depicting the various birds in all their glory, while others relied on digital guides. Birder Diana Brumbaugh of Fremont used the aptly named iBird app, ably deploying the aid along with her tripod. She also carried the hardcopy Sibley Field Guide.

As the group hiked along the edge of the lagoon, stopping from time to time to suss out birds on the opposite side, they resembled a gaggle of detectives a la Sherlock Holmes more than hunters.

Steven Gordon of Larkspur even had a deerstalker-type cap of the sort associated with Holmes. "This is my first time. I'm seeing with the eyes of a child," Gordon said.

"We've always been curious about various types of birds," said Gonzales. "It's sort of a funny human behavior to want to classify and name."

The youngest member of the group was 8-year-old Camille Duran, a budding ornithologist from El Cerrito escorted by her mom Jessica. "She loves birds," Jessica said.

Just finding the birds in the spotting scopes was something of an adventure. One birder would notice an avian on the other side, then set up a scope on the tripod and invite everyone to look.

Peering through the scope, an egret that was little more than a white dot when seen with the naked eye came majestically into focus, its neck forming a gentle S-curve, almost every feather discernable.

"We're just thinking about what we will need to buy," Gonzales said. "So much of this equipment can be used for other things, too, like spying on your neighbors." The group burst into uproarious laughter.

Hearing a tweet, Haley announced, "This is a hummingbird. The birds make that noise with their tails."

The tiny bird traced an intricate pattern easily 15 feet in the air. Hoerle, the infamous sighter of the Green Heron and an Inverness resident, said, "This is a mating display." Entranced by the bird's peregrinations, the birders gathered at the side of the trail, craning their necks to watch it zooming from side to side.

As the group dispersed, Mika, who rode over the Golden Gate Bridge on her bike from San Francisco with her husband, said, "We had a great time."

"Just being outside is fun," said Gonzales. "We live by Golden Gate Park and there are so many birds there."

"I honestly did not know hummingbirds emitted a sound of any kind," Mika said. "Or that those cute river otters are bloodthirsty killers."